Wii U owners in North America will soon be able to relive The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. The action-adventure classic will arrive on the console’s Virtual Console service later today, May 12. The Wii U port can only be played with the Wii U GamePad, and it is compatible with the Wii U Microphone. Phantom Hourglass was originally released in 2007 for Nintendo DS. Check out its Wii U listing below:
Many months after the events of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Link must return to the open seas and solve the mystery of the Ghost Ship. Explore neighboring islands for useful items, such as the Phantom Hourglass, and solve innovative puzzles by using intuitive touch-screen controls.
I thought Phantom Hourglass was pretty meh. I never did complete it. Just stopped. After some dungeons and a couple bosses, nah… It just wasn’t that interesting. Never played Spirit Tracks though. Perhaps it’s better.
The gameplay is all on trains. XD
It’s not only on trains. Trains are the transportation just like boats were in Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass. I’ve played both of the DS Zeldas. The Temple you return to repeatedly always sucks, but the boss fights in PH were super inventive and used the DS’s unique features really well.
No. No it’s not. Spirit Tracks forces the same horrible, shitty gimmick controls as the first. If that was your problem with Phantom Hourglass, steer clear of Spirit Tracks. Although, I will say Spirit Tracks has a much better story that actually makes it feel a bit more like a main Zelda game.
Wait what, is this the first DS virtual console game?
Not even close. Mario Kart DS, Yoshi’s Island DS, WarioWare: Touched are already up there, along with, I think, LoZ Spirit Tracks, Super Mario 64 DS, Star Fox Command, Animal Crossing Wild World, and Kirby Squeak Squad.
One of the worst Zelda games, on the worst Nintendo consoles!
This or the Wii U? lol
How will the close-your-DS trick work, I wonder…
Opening the Electronic menu did it for me.
electronic manual*
I’ve never heard good things about this Zelda title. Never played it myself, though. For some reason the DS Zelda entries never interested me.
Just looking back on the DS, it might be my least favorite of the Nintendo handhelds. GBA and 3DS are my favs.
There controls were the biggest complaint I think. I never had a problem with them myself. The map feature was a great addition though.
Just to clarify. Apologies for being dumb but this won’t play thru the TV?
Yes you can. But if I do recall, Phantom Hourglass used the bottom touch screen for movement instead of the d-pad. No idea how it works on the Wii U, but I’d imagine if you use the TV as the display, you’ll have to use the Gamepad for movement. Which I’d say is really inconvenient when it could just be used as a map screen. This is just a guess though. I’ve never used it so you should see for yourself if you can.
This was actually a good game. But the stylus controls takes a HUGE amount of patience. Nintendo should have learned from their mistake with the stylus controls before Spirit Tracks released. But nope, they screwed that game too. Fortunately, there was no more full stylus control Zelda games after that.
It’s not screwed up it’s just a different control scheme.
Different? Yes. Horrible control scheme for a dedicated video game system because it was more suited for mobile gaming? Yes. So screwed up is a nice word to use if you didn’t like the controls. Least Nintendo has a nice control scheme for their eventual mobile Zelda game.
Your own opinion but ok.
You talk as if I’m the only one that has this opinion but okay.
Oh look. I just started playing a game that I would have rather played on VC, but look at that: Nintendo decides to release it on VC only after I have just made decent progress in the game.
This tends to happen a lot ;_;
I saw my roommate had a ds copy literally two days ago, he’s had it since it came out and I never knew it all these years lol and was gonna borrow it but mentioned it may come to VC cause it came out in Europe and two days later here it is, glad I didn’t start like you lol.
the only flaw of this game is that stupid ass temple of the ocean king. aside from that, it’s a good time.
3DS or I dont care
Horrible Zelda games to be on home console’s VC. Should have just ported them to 3DS as 2 for 1 bundle. 20 bucks for both games is the right price with that annoying control scheme that should have never been used on anything but a mobile device.
Uhh, I believe both games are collectively $20, excluding tax. You buy each separately but with both at ten bucks, it’s the same thing basically.
Honestly, I never really had a problem with the controls except that sometimes my hand would obscure the screen. At least PH’s and ST’s control schemes are less frustrating than Star Fox Zero’s where you can suddenly start firing straight up if you don’t press the recalibrate button every 8 seconds.
I was able to use the controls just fine (except for the end of PH with the having to draw a damn hourglass figure and took at least 10-20 minutes, maybe more, to get the damn thing right & flute segments of Spirit Tracks.) But I still fucking hated them. So like Kid Icarus Uprising, I played them once & got rid of them soon after. Sad, really, as I’d like to have a complete collection of every Zelda game digitally, but those are the only two Zelda games I refuse to EVER get digitally or physically ever again. They’d have to remake them to get rid of those controls, but Nintendo is so arrogant right now that they don’t want to admit they fucked up with forced control schemes.
Kid Icarus controls were a problem for me, but I got the hand grip attachment when I bought my 3ds so that helped a lot. Still my hand would cramp. Even so, I still played hours upon hours of it. It was such a great game. It really deserves a sequel. Zelda on the other hand, never gave me a problem.
For the story alone, it does deserve another game. Hopefully it won’t have the same gameplay mechanic, though. If I never have to play another stylus controlled game again, it will still be way too soon. Controlling a game solely by finger or stylus should seriously stay where it belongs: on touch phones & tablets.
I getcha. I got rid of PH mostly because of the TotOK and having to redo entire sections over and over again, in the same save file.
I kept and still love ST, mostly because I just like trains, heh. Striking the final blow against the final boss makes me worried I’ll bust my screen though since you need to rub it like a madman to do it.
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